Russia 111201 Basic Political Developments

Second Round Blues

Comment by Sergey Markedonov Special to Russia Profile 11/30/2011

The second round of presidential elections in South Ossetia has ended in scandal. After the republic’s Central Election Commission announced the results of the vote (56.74 percent for Alla Dzhioyeva and 40 percent for Anatoly Bibilov), the defeated candidate, a representative of the ruling party, filed a complaint with the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court (the highest court in South Ossetia) ruled that Bibilov’s arguments had legal grounds and cancelled the results of the election. Soon after this ruling, the Parliament of the partially-recognized republic set a date for repeat elections – March 25, 2012.

The situation has been intensified by the fact that Dzhioyeva, who is accused of breaking election law, has been banned from taking part in next year’s vote. This may well cause a serious internal political crisis in the republic. By the evening of November 29, information was already coming out of the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali that a State Council of South Ossetia was being formed from those opposed to the current authorities. The council was conceived as an institution set up to safeguard Dzhiyoeva’s victory, which the opposition believes was illegally stolen.

Thus two rounds of elections have failed to answer the question of who will be the new president of South Ossetia. It is not entirely clear what authority current President Eduard Kokoity holds after the latest developments (his presidency was due to end in December of this year), or whether there will be a transition to a temporary government led by the prime minister. It’s also unclear how the results of the November elections will be interpreted in the future. The results have been cancelled, but will the fact that they took place also be cancelled? And if the elections themselves are recognized (they were recognized by observers from Russia and other de-facto institutions, which is still not a valid argument to the international community, but for South Ossetia, it is serious proof), then the current President Eduard Kokoity, can theoretically run as a candidate. As we can see, the November 29 decision has raised a lot of questions, the answers to which are unlikely to appear in the next few days. However, there are some preliminary conclusions that can already be drawn from the November presidential elections in South Ossetia.

First of all, the election campaign showed that the partially-recognized republic has an agenda of its own, one which is closely linked to Russia and its financial support, but that boils down to more than just financial transactions between Moscow and Tskhinvali. Today many journalists and political analysts are openly ironic about the recognition of South Ossetia as a state. And many of their arguments are justified. Unlike Abkhazia or Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia does not have a powerful diaspora, an advantageous location, potentially attractive infrastructure, or diverse external contacts. Its population and territory are smaller than those of North Ossetia, which is a federal subject of Russia, and there are practically no opportunities for independent economic development there. However, the fact that South Ossetia was recognized became cause for serious social reflection about the advantages and disadvantages of this process. The republic did indeed rid itself of the threat of being absorbed by Georgia. But does that automatically grant an indulgence to its authorities, who are ready to turn national self-determination into a lucrative business project for a small group of people? This question is, after all, pivotal to a political battle waged in the republic between 2008 and 2011. It has divided previous comrades in arms, veterans of the Georgia-Ossetia conflict. Today these veterans are in both Dzhiyoeva’s and Bibilov’s teams, which means that concerns about Georgians who could try to influence events in South Ossetia have moved lower down the republic’s agenda. They did surface during the election campaign, but did not play an important role. The Supreme Court did not charge Dzhiyoeva with betraying her country, but with buying votes and using inappropriate propaganda.

And if the Georgian issue played a secondary role in this campaign, the Russian issue played a primary one. I want to say from the start that there was no competition between opposing geopolitical projects in the elections. But candidates do see Russia’s role differently. And not just the candidates, but also Eduard Kokoity, whose main aim is to protect his own interests. And in this image contest, Moscow failed to come out on top every time. Dialogue about Russian policy in the post-Soviet space, even in the West, often stresses the dominance of “scenario thinking” in the Kremlin. Meanwhile, the Russian authorities’ actions in various parts of the former Soviet Union look less like a well-thought out plan than an improvisation. This is, unfortunately, what happened in South Ossetia in 2011. Up until the first round of elections, Moscow did not play an active role – its main goal was the civilized transfer of power in the partially-recognized republic. When the first round showed growing dissatisfaction with the republic’s administration, the Kremlin could come up with nothing better than supporting one of the candidates. The candidate who conformed to its preferred standards of “guaranteed stability” and preventing “revolutionary shocks” was Anatoly Bibilov.

From this point onward, Moscow made its position vividly clear, cutting itself off various paths and leaving no room to maneuver. Russia had a choice – to become a player in South Ossetian internal politics or to retain the role of a mediator. A week before the second round, the Kremlin preferred involved support to arbitration. This was reminiscent of the situation in 2004 in Abkhazia, when Moscow supported Vladislav Ardzinba’s successor Raul Khadzimba. However, unlike in Abkazia, the results of the vote in South Ossetia were fully annulled. The protest energy did not find an outlet, although an opposition candidate coming to power would have allowed to ease the situation, and to relieve dissatisfaction with Kokoity, which had already started to spread to Moscow bureaucrats and businessmen. Moscow had a good example in front of it: Sergei Bagapsh and Alexander Ankvab, who progressed from being critics of the first Abkhaz leader Vladislav Ardzinba (their opposition slogans did not differ much in essence from Dzhioyeva’s) to heading the de-facto state and becoming Russian allies in the Caucasus. If Russia had chosen to be a mediator, the protest vote may have been smaller in the second round, and Dziyoeva’s victory would not have come out of the blue for South Ossetian bureaucrats.

If Moscow had a readymade scenario in mind, it could foresee the possibility of a soft rotation in the case of the opposition’s success. Unfortunately, the improvised style presents Moscow with many problems. Now, many of the South Ossetian authorities’ ambivalent decisions will be associated not only with Kokoity’s team, but also with the Kremlin. So much direct opposition, 56 percent of South Ossetian voters, is unlikely to correspond to Russian national interests in the Greater Caucasus. But as yet it is in fact giving the Georgian propaganda machine additional arguments in support of its “occupation,” Russian dominance and the failure of the de-facto republic claims. Of course the reality is more complicated. But what propagandist ever paid attention to nuances?

In short, a line has yet to be drawn under this election story. And if new elections go ahead in March, and in the hypothetical scenario of a color revolution, that is – public protests against the cancelling of the results, Russia will be objectively needed as a mediator. So there is still a chance to fix the mistakes.